Communion
by QuiaVeritatis
Summary: GN!V and GN!EV take a little trip together.


Communion

GN!V and GN!EV and Movie characters mixed...

Rated R for adult themes

* * *

"There are some concepts that are beyond words."

"What? I can't believe I'm hearing this from you." Evey pointed at the mountain of books visible through the doorway of his bedroom. The mask tilted, and Evey followed the eye-holes to the walls of the Shadow Gallery. She frowned as her eyes fell upon the paintings and the sculpture in the hall. The Wurlitzer. Perhaps that's what he means, she thought, dropping her arm.

"Maybe I can see what you mean. The paintings, right? The sculpture? Hear what you mean? Music?"

"No," he replied slowly. "That's not what I mean at all."

Evey waited. He did not move, he did not speak. He was barely breathing_. Is this another test?_ Another trick? "Bloody hell, V. Just tell me what it is."

"I can't. But I can show you. Come with me."

He turned without waiting to see if she would follow. _He is bloody arrogant_. Evey crossed her arms. "No. I'm not following you anywhere. Not ever again, you bastard. You could lead me into some hole."

"You haven't forgiven me." He didn't turn, but spoke softly over his shoulder.

"Forgiven you?" she cried. "Every day I curse you for what you did. Every night I imagine my little hands around your fat neck squeezing the life out of you until I fall asleep from the exhaustion of hating you!"

He turned to face her and the mask moved; a sinuous weave in the air. "You must learn to let the hatred go, Evey." The silky tones infuriated her. Evey sucked air then exploded.

"Let it go? Let it go? I shall never let it go. It sustains me day after day, keeps me from falling into the mire of self-pity, lifts me above the cynicism, bitterness and bile of my daily life. And you?" She stabbed at the space between them with her finger. "Telling me to let go of my hate? There are more than forty new graves out there in the city! More than forty graves dug in the ground, testimony to how well you have let go of your hate. Do not speak to me of forgiveness. You have not forgiven. You will not be forgiven." Evey folded her arms defensively again, took a step backwards. He was unpredictable. She had shouted at him before, but never this vehemently. _What would he do? Throw her out?_ He had done that before. Laugh at her. It seemed he was always laughing at her. She knew it was just the Mask, but still…it was disconcerting. This time he stood without moving. Not the Mask, not the gloves. Not a hair moved. Even his breathing had stopped. _Got him_, she thought. _He's speechless_.

Then a tilt of the chin and the Mask moved. "Why did you come back, Evey?" The words floated slowly across the space between them.

Eve did not know the answer. She glanced at the paintings, the baby grand, the chandelier lighting their conversation. She turned and looked into his bedroom. There were books there she had started and never finished. Books she wanted to read. Books that could be found nowhere else in Britain. Did she come back to him, or to his library? The Gallery was beautiful. It was quiet. Safe. But that was deceiving, wasn't it? She had been imprisoned here. Pinned to him like the butterflies in the shadow boxes. Helpless. Through that door led insanity. Through another door, redemption. She looked at the library again. Which door was he trying to open for her now?

"Why did you come back?" he asked again, softer this time.

Evey swallowed. She had left him. Gotten a job. Paid for a flat. It was hell. She hated it. This is hell. She hated him. Tears welled up and she angrily brushed them away. _Tears of anger_, she told herself. Tears of frustration. But he saw them. She could tell because the Mask moved. In two long strides he was there. Two heavy steps echoing in the Gallery and he was there. He came to her and she let him. He took her arms in the leather gloves and squeezed her.

"Why?" a whisper.

"I…I had to," she would not look at him. If she could not see him, then he would not see her. He took her chin and forced her face up. The Mask was a shadow, all the light was behind him.

"Evey," he breathed.

"Oh God." Evey sniffed and wiped her eyes again. "I don't know."

"Then come with me. Let me show you something," he spoke in a low rumble, like a panther's purr.

"How can I trust you?" Evey put her hands on his wrists and he let her remove his hands from her body.

"You can't. But you will. Come with me." He turned and moved gracefully toward the stairs, pausing this time halfway to wait for her. Evey took one step. Then another. _He is right_. She would follow him.

He led her down three flights to a place in the Gallery she had never been. It was dark, and she flinched when he touched the wall and illuminated a room. It smelled funny, was all glass and Formica. As she passed through the doorway she recognized it as a laboratory. He turned and opened his arms to her with a familiar gesture.

"Welcome to my lab, Evey Hammond. Make yourself at home."

"Hardly." Evey ran a finger along the shining countertop. "This is where you concoct the Chemicals of Doom, right?" She took in the beakers, the burners, the wire, tubes and what looked suspiciously like gelignite. Evey started to back away toward the door.

"No, no, it is not time to leave. We haven't started yet."

"I told you before, V, I won't kill anyone. Not for you, not ever again. I mean it."

"No. I'm not asking you to help me kill anyone." He was reaching for a brown vial in a dark cabinet.

"Are you going to poison me like you did the Bishop?

"No. But it is a Communion of sorts. Come to me, Eve."

His voice compelled her. In his gloved hand he held a pipette filled with fluid of some kind. "Here, I will take mine first." The Mask tilted up and the pipette touched the mouth slit. The Mask dipped down and the gloved hand moved toward her mouth, the pipette slender and delicate like the beak of a hummingbird. Evey closed her eyes as the cool glass touched her lips and a drop of nectar lay on her tongue.

"Now what?" she asked the Mask.

"An hour of dancing. Then…we will see."

His hands were warm, she could feel them through the gloves. He had selected some slow sad tunes on the Wurlitzer. Now she was swaying to "Strange Fruit", a song V told her had nothing at all to do with peaches. His hands were warm. She looked at the end of her right arm, where her hand disappeared into black leather. His thumb had a tight grip on hers, it didn't hurt. She looked closer. The bones of her fingers appeared like tent stakes, holding the skin of her hand up, keeping her hand from collapsing. She looked closer. _Yes_. It was a tent. In the desert. She loved her hand. She wanted to go to it. _Yes_. She was there. A storm blew around her, pelting her with sand. She had to find shelter. There in the tent. She was inside. So dark inside her hand. Something was in there with her! Something big, taking up the valuable space inside. She needed that space! To save her from the sand and the wind! Get out of my space! She tried to say the words, but sand was in her mouth. Instead she crawled over and on the intruder, feeling her way past smooth leather boots, silken trousers and a thick doublet. She crawled on it, climbing up to something cold and smooth. V.

"Damn it, V," she croaked, sand scratching her throat," can't you even stay out of my hand?"

"You came in here. I had to follow," he said softly to her.

"This is my hand. You find your own hand."

She heard him rumble in his chest. He was laughing at her again. "I have."

"Get out, then."

"No. Not tonight. Why are you here, Eve? Why did you create a sandstorm? Such a fierce sandstorm and such a tiny and fragile shelter?"

"I don't know what you mean." Eve shifted so that she was sitting more comfortably on his lap. She leaned against his chest. He was so much bigger than she. So much more comfortable than the ground, and his back sheltered her from the buffeting of the hand tent in the wind. _This is good_. She could rest here. And if the tent collapsed with the next gust, the poles would fall on his head first.

"What else do you see, Eve. Tell me." He had honey in his voice. So soothing. So fluid. So _not_ like sand.

She put her hand on his chest, beneath her chin. Felt his heartbeat. _I guess he does have one. A heart, I mean. I hear it. Vicious bastard. Murderer. Yet a heart like everyone else._ Then she saw something. The Old Bailey. She gasped. It had been destroyed. He blew it up. Than what was she seeing now?

"What are you seeing, Eve? Tell me."

"The Bailey, but she's whole. God. She is beautiful." Evey felt his arms circle around her and squeeze.

"What else?"

"The statue of Justice. She stands at the apex. She sees all of London. All of London sees her. Oh, and there's a child looking up at her. He's with his Da." Evey felt V stiffen beneath her. His voice was colder now, not honey…but ice.

"And?" he breathed.

"I can hear him, he's saying, 'who is that beautiful lady, Da?" and his Da answers, "That is Justice, son." There was a choking sound beneath her ear. Evey looked up. Too dark in the hand tent to see. The arms tightened around her again.

Evey frowned. "You killed her, didn't you. You killed the beautiful lady. You grew up into a big strong man and murdered her."

Deep and soft, in her ear: "I didn't kill her. She was already dead. I destroyed a corpse."

"A corpse?"

"Yes. She had been murdered long before. Only the shell remained, visible throughout London, a sham Justice. A false beacon to the people that Justice remained…though she was long dead. Long dead. She had whored herself to the government, and they killed her, just as all powerful people destroy what is righteous and beautiful in their struggle for power. My beautiful lady," his voice cracked, he paused for three beats of his heart, then finished smoothly, "dead."

Outside the tent, the wind died as well. The sand sifted to the ground. The tent disappeared and she was standing by the Wurlitzer, pressed up against the chest of a large man in black silk, her hands pinned in black leather. Some old Blues song was playing, but V had stopped dancing. She looked up. She could see him now. The light was behind him, but she could see him. He was not laughing at her. No. The mask was gone…_where was it_? She put her hands up to him, yes, the cold steel, the porcelain. The Mask was there, but she was looking through it. The gloved hands snatched hers away.

"Don't look at me Evey." His voice had a steel edge.

"You can't stop me this time. You know yourself! I am looking at you through that damned mask. I can see you without my eyes. I see you, V. I see you."

"Oh God," he breathed.

He seized her, swinging her up into his arms and strode to the sofa. Thump thump thump…his boot heels pounded the flagstones, the sound echoing off the arches of the high ceiling. Evey knew he could move as silently as a cat if he wanted to. The pounding was for him. He was trying to drown out the sound of his own heartbeats. She knew it. She felt the pounding through his doublet. Each step sent a percussion wave through her; she practically bounced off his chest as he threw himself, with her in his arms, on the sofa. She lay there on top of him for a few moments until the pounding diminished. Then, he spoke.

"You can tell me now. What did you see, Eve?"

Evey shifted to make herself more comfortable, curled up on his lap like a cat. He lay one gloved hand on her head, the other her hips and stretched out his legs. Her head lay directly beneath his chin. "I see you, V," she whispered. "I see you in your cell. I see you beaten, bleeding. Sick. I see you finding Valerie's letter. I see you weep. But I also see you heal, and I see you think. I see the explosion. And, V. I see that you meant to die in that blast. I see that you thought it would all be over; the suffering, the torture, the misery, the loss. And then, I see you when you realized that you weren't going to die after all. When you came here. What you planned. And oh, I can see now…" Evey sat up, eyes wide. "Oh, Christ. Oh bloody hell."

"Evey?" He turned her around so he could see her, his hands circling her waist. Evey peered into the black, black eye slits.

"My god, V." Evey felt the blood drain from her face. It all made sense to her now. She put both hands on either side of his head, careful not to touch the Mask, looking, looking into those black holes. "I see…" she wanted to tell him, but the tears rolled down, tightening her throat. He was listening intently, barely breathing now. "I can see where your violent hatred turned to love. I see it. I see how you loved Humanity with such intensity that you refused to destroy yourself. In your own private agony, in the midst of your own hell, you created this bastion of art, music, and literature. What is the very best about humanity is here preserved alongside humanity's ultimate horrors. Art and savagery, music and discord, sculpture and destruction… and your vendetta," she moved her hands to his shoulders. You became Madame Justice, didn't you. You didn't hate the forty men you killed. You didn't hate them, did you."

"No." He said it so softly Evey wasn't sure she heard it as a word. It sounded more like a moan.

"It wasn't your hate. It was your love. For us. She sighed and lay back on his chest. "I knew it," she whispered. "Thank you for that. And thank you for whatever was in that vial. But V?"

"Hmmm?"

"You took some. I saw you. What are you seeing? You are seeing something, too, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I can't tell you now, Eve. Come back on the Fourth. I'll tell you on the Fourth.

"Then I will. I want to hear it. When you are ready. But what about me? What you did to me. You said you did it because you love me. But that isn't quite sane, is it?" She wasn't asking him. She was telling him.

His breath whistled through the mouth slit, "Sanity is relative," he answered dryly.

"Yes. I can see where you were. I can see your desperation. I can see your need to communicate." Evey shook her head. "But it was wrong, V, it was wrong just as killing is still wrong. Your sanity, after Larkhill, was tenuous at best. And it snapped. I see where it snapped. There, when I ran away from you. At the Church. I'm seeing it right now."

"I thought you were gone forever. I had to make you see. I didn't know how else…"

"You have made me see. And you were right about that. Words cannot convey what I know now. There is no language for this. And before, when we were dancing. You told me not to look at you. Why? You knew I would see you, didn't you?"

"No. I didn't. But I was afraid, Evey. I was afraid you would see a monster." He cradled her head in one glove. "Do you still hate me?" he whispered. "Am I still a monster? I must know."

Evey smiled, she pulled the glove to her lips. Kissed the palm. "No. I do not think I am capable of hating anything or any one any more. Ever."

He let out his breath in a long sigh. "When you said, 'good-bye', I…I knew I had failed. But you came back. Why did you come back? Can you tell me now? Do you know?"

"Hmm…For this. You weren't finished. I wasn't finished. I had to see." _Communion_. "Ironic, isn't it? She frowned, "I'm remembering something. You have held me like this before."

"Twice."

"Twice?" Evey thought back, drew a blank. _This is harder to see._

He stroked her arm. "The first night I brought you here. You were unconscious; I held you until you woke up the first time. People with concussions…"

"Yes, …shouldn't sleep. How did you know when it was safe to put me in your bed?"

"I just knew." There was an unsteady echo in his voice. Some things cannot be expressed with words.

"And the second time?" Evey wondered.

"After you emerged from the…cell. Do you remember that time?"

"Barely, hardly. I wonder how much of that I will remember. It's so painful, it is a dark blur. But now there's this time. This makes three times. You are holding me now."

She heard him inhale softly. "No, I'm not. You," he breathed, "are holding me."


End file.
